Throne of Blood

He melded drama and japanese culture as we think of them. The drama came in when the soon to be king denied that he wanted to be king in the bottom of his heart. Then all of the actions up until his death consisted of drama. Starting from when his wife told him that his only chance of killing the king to become king was at the time that the king came to his house. It does seem that he retold hamlet in his own vision of it. I only say this because the main characters sort of did the same thing in killing the king. But they both killed the kings for different reasons. In hamlet the king was kiled for revenge, in Throne of Blood the king was killed so that another could take his pace. In both movies however the previous king was killed so another could take his place. Noh theatre comes in from the very start of the movie. Just the fact that the background of the movie is basically japanese culture gives it away, especially the uniforms that the soldiers had on. The storyline is the only thing that intertwines with shakespare, everything else is Noh theatre. He himself, I believe, had very little thinking to do. All he did was take the drama and a little of the stotyline from shakespare, and mix it with the old japanese traditions in Noh theatre. The singing in the beginning of the movie sounded like it came from shakespeare. I only say this bacause shakespeare is english and the singing reminded me of the very early english church, and how they used to sing in deep and high tones at a very slowpace. The fact that the movie was in black and white adds to the feel of the movie deeply. It gives an eerie feel to the movie and this adds to the effect that the evil spirits and the quiet foggy, windy places give off. It gives off a constant sense of murder and conspiracy in the air. There were two special effect sthat i noticed in the movie. The first was when the spirit first appeared and then dissappeared in a gust of wind. The second was when the last king looked out of the window a saw that the trees were attacking. You could see the trees but not the people pushing them. Their feet were totally concealed by the fog, it seemed that wind had stopped blowing indicating that someone was about to die.